Cleric Races

Sorry if this has been addressed somewhere already but I do have a little concern regarding the number of races that will get to actually play a Cleric. It seems a little off balance to me that only 3 races can start as a Cleric.

There are a few others that only have 3 or like a paladin that has 2 however these are more specialized subclasses not the primary focus class of healer. Granted we do not know how well a druid or shaman can fill this role, but typically a Cleric is rather important. Limiting it to just 3 races though may create a shortage of something that is kind of important since in every MMO the holy trinity seems to reign supreme.

There is always a surplus of dps classes, there is always a shortage of the tank and healer classes.

And there are good arguments for each side. Thus, I think the best answer is that there is no real answer.

Here's a quote from Kilsin:

Kilsin said:

Sevens said:

Original lore (not sure if its still in effect) you had 3 factions of 3 races each IIRC

Ogres, Myr, and Trolls (Skaar) Evil

Humans, Archai, and Gnomes Neuts

Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings Goods

You have a good memory man, but we actually scrapped that idea, we had intended on using that grouping to only have a few starting areas but now we are making one for each race, so it is back to being open and not locked to specific groups. :)

Therefore, it's not really as simple as good and evil. There may be sort of faction triangles. For example, the Ogres might get along well with Skar and Dark Myr, but the Skar and Dark Myr might not get along with each other. The way I look at it is each race has a set of ideals within their society. I don't think any are truly evil in the sense that they are trying to take over the world. But each has their own views as to how to conduct themselves on this new planet. Suffice to say, I think it's safe to assume that Paladins will value altruism, righteousness, and selflessness. And those values simply do not line up with the values of the Dark Myr culture. The life of the Dire Lord is more their style.

Though I don't think there will be as much dependency on clerics as there was in EQ, they are going to be trying to make the healers all reasonably equal.

To the contrary they specifically said at some point (if someone knows of the link) that they want distinct roles. Clerics will always be the strongest heals at the sacrifice for utility same as enchanter for cc, and wizzy for dps. They will not make all healers equal they strongly believe in the EQ model on this one. The normalization of healers into totally interchangeable classes is exactly what VR is against doing. I would not fret over this.

Maybe not exactly equal in heals but not far from one another. In EQ it was a joke how much better clerics were at healing and VR seems intent on making sure that isn't the case here as they want the classes able to competently fulfill their primary role pretty much all the time.

"It's looking like Cleric, Shaman, and Druid will all be viable healers... Think about the last stream we saw where the Shaman was the only healer in the group and they did fine. Like a Druid, the Shaman may not have as high sheer healing numbers as a Cleric. But there's a lot more to being a support than just healing. For example, we saw the Shaman employ a lot of abilities that significantly slowed the enemies' attack speed, thus causing the group to take less damage. In fact, in a lot of cases, I'd argue that damage prevention/mitigation is even better than damage recovery. But the point is that you are accomplishing the same goal of keeping your group members alive, but it is simply a different style because there's more to it than just always hitting a heal button. It may take a little bit more strategy using a variety of situational abilities."

Even if Shamans and Druids cannot put out nearly as high healing numbers as a Cleric doesn't mean they won't be able to fill the same roll. The particular dungeon may play a part on how hard of a time your group has, but in most cases, it doesn't matter whether or not you pick a Druid or a Shaman or a Cleric, they will all be able to get the job done, just with different playstyles.

I hope the dev team revisits the race/class choices. An Elf can be a Druid but not a Cleric? I know this isn't Everquest but Elves should have Cleric as a class. As it stands now I can see 90% of the Cleric pop be Dark Myr's. (I know I will be if Elf isn't an option). :)

I hope the dev team revisits the race/class choices. An Elf can be a Druid but not a Cleric? I know this isn't Everquest but Elves should have Cleric as a class. As it stands now I can see 90% of the Cleric pop be Dark Myr's. (I know I will be if Elf isn't an option). :)

Here's some insight from Istuulamae in the March newsletter:

Another hot button issue was that of the lack of a Cleric or Paladin class available to our Elves. While the superficial answer of “think of them as wood elves, not high elves” makes sense to most veteran gamers, there is a deeper lore meaning behind that rationale. Justin explained that the races that were prone to produce Clerics and Paladins were ones that were deeply connected to their deities, and that relationship was one that was central to their daily lives. The Elves are a bit different in that regard.

“While their pantheon is important to the Elves, their response to several tragic and divisive historical moments has superseded the way they see themselves. To a degree Elves have become more ideological than religious. While some races are separated into different factions based on which deity they worship, Elves are split between two extremes (Ashen and Ember) and the nominal middle called Lucent. Those division represent the way they think is best to protect and prosper their people. Is it interwoven with their worship? Yes. But faith isn’t the first-thought focus of their life. It’s fair to ask if that is an imbalance for them”

It is also important to note that many of the lore based decisions on which race can be which class are also dictated to some degree by overall game representations and balance, and more importantly that just because something is currently so, doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t change in the future. Elves are a good example here, as while they currently don’t produce the pious classes, they may, through future events or interactions, develop a sect that takes up that mantle.

Ogre Cleric, with a maul. I realize Ogres always get typecast as a shamanistic race, but I still think racial limitations is honestly not a great idea. For the simple reason that you can come up with a workable backstory for literally any combination. By placing artificial limitations on classes it makes the world feel less real, less dynamic.

As a quick example for the ogre cleric, the character was orphaned and then raised by a former cleric. The cleric literally taught them everything they know and hence they became a cleric as well and have just now traveled back to an ogre village to try to bring others into the light.

That took all of 2 seconds to come up with and provides a fairly logical reason for an ogre cleric to exist. It also works for nearly any class combination. Does that mean they'd make a good cleric? meh maybe, maybe not. Depends how stats and levelups work out and how much gear will matter in the end.

P.S. I'd also be curious where you're getting the estimate that 90% of Clerics will be Dark Myr.

Of the 3 races that can be cleric, if I play a cleric it will definitely be a Dark Myr... on that note, if any race other than Human or Dwarf could be Paladin, I would definitely play Paladin. With that said, I believe the original commenter got their 90% estimate based on popularity of the class combined with the popularity of the race - adversly I really "believe" that VR chose their race/class matrix (and some other things like Dire Lords not wearing plate) based on balancing class populations. (If Dark Myr could be Paladins that would likely be the over represented tank, OR if dire lords could wear plate, there would be less people planning to be warriors). But "lore" is a good pacifier to quell the inquiries as to why a specific ethnicity can't perform a certain job. "Everyone knows THOSE people can't be Doctors! It's in their backstory."

Personally, I think any race could be any class. Unless the class is evil and the race is good or vice versa. If we do some kind of alignment system... then that would help.

This class race restrictions remind me of EQ1... but would prefer something more like EQ2.

HOWEVER, I think some race / class combos should get some severe penalties... Ogre /Rogue Ogre's ability/dexterity should be definitely penalized. But doable if someone really wants to do it. May not be the best rogue but if the person is happy... why not?

Maybe not exactly equal in heals but not far from one another. In EQ it was a joke how much better clerics were at healing and VR seems intent on making sure that isn't the case here as they want the classes able to competently fulfill their primary role pretty much all the time.

The other difference was that both of the partial healers in EQ (Sham and Dru) had a ton more random utility abilities than the cleric did. I am okay with multiple classes able to heal equally if they all have equally useful other utility abiltiies. Otherwise it leaves clerics as a gimped pure healer only type compared to the other two.